2011 Annual Users' Conference: Keynote Speaker

James G. Neal

Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian
Columbia University

The Planning Committee for the 2011 VALE / NJLA CUS / NJ ACRL Users' Conference is pleased to announced that our Keynote Speaker for the conference will be James G. Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University.

A frequent speaker at national and international conferences, James Neal is also a consultant and published author, with a focus in the areas of scholarly communication, intellectual property, digital library programs, organizational change, and human resource development. He has served on the Scholarly Communication committees of ARL and ACRL and as Chair of the Steering Committee of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and currently on the Board of the Columbia University Press.

He has represented the American library community in testimony on copyright matters before Congressional committees, was an advisor to the U.S. delegation at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) diplomatic conference on copyright, has worked on copyright policy and advisory groups for universities and for professional and higher education associations, and during 2005-2008 was a member of the U.S. Copyright Office Section 108 Study Group. He was selected the 1997 Academic Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries and was the 2007 recipient of ALA’s Hugh Atkinson Memorial Award and the 2009 ALA Melvil Dewey Medal Award. And in 2010, he received the honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alberta.

We are very happy to welcome James G. Neal as our 2011 Conference Keynote Speaker and we are certain conference attendees will find his remarks of great interest.